In addition to deepening the understanding of factors that influence budget outputs, this study also seeks to contribute to the larger discussion concerning the administrative implications of political culture. The data indicate that political culture exerted an independent impact on total state and local spending in the 1990s, even after controlling for commonly cited economic, political, and demographic variables. Although other variables undoubtedly influence policy outputs, this study suggests that the role of political culture should not be ignored and may be very useful for explaining policy variations that exist between jurisdictions.

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This research updates existing literature that describes the nature of public affairs programs. A profile of the top 50 public affairs programs, according to rankings from U.S. News & World Report, is identified. Programs are differentiated by type (master of public administration, master of public policy, master of public affairs, and other), and comparisons are made regarding total hours, hours in core, number of specializations, capital city location, accreditation, institutional home, required courses within core, numbers of core courses by category per the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, and variety of specializations within programs. The article statistically explores the relative importance of program characteristics in the status of the top 50 institutions.